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Raipur: Virat Kohli scored his customary half-century to lead Royal Challengers Bangalore into the Indian Premier League 2016 playoffs with a 6-wicket win over Delhi Daredevils at Raipur on Sunday.
Kohli’s unbeaten 54 helped RCB to the No. 2 position on the IPL 9 points table.
Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers fell early, but Kohli found an able ally in KL Rahul. The pair of Kohli and Rahul put on a crucial 66 runs for the third wicket before Rahul was dismissed.
Rahul’s wicket was fortuitous for DD; he looked to guide Carlos Brathwaite to third man but the ball rolled back onto his stumps after getting an inside edge.
The dismissal of Rahul brought in Shane Watson at No. 5. Watson struggled to read Amit Mishra and was nearly dismissed early in his innings going for a big shot down the ground.
Watson survived then, but a few balls later holed out to midwicket after trying to slog Pawan Negi for six. Watson was dismissed for 14 from 18 balls, going past 5,000 runs in T20 cricket in the process.
Earlier, Quinton de Kock scored a valuable 60 but received little support from the middle order as DD reached a sub-par 138 for 8.
DD were hampered by the fact that their trio of Indian batsmen floundered. Rishabh Pant, Karun Nair, and Sanju Samson — batting at Nos 2, 3, and 4 respectively — scored a mere 29 runs among them. Even Pawan Negi, promoted up the order, failed to get going and ended up scoring 6 off 12 balls. Yuzvendra Chahal took 3 wickets to gain the Purple Cap.
De Kock started well, getting a spate of early boundaries off Stuart Binny, Chris Jordan, and Sreenath Aravind, but the constant fall of wickets at the other end forced him to play a more circumspect innings.
As a result he was unable to continue with the same fluency he displayed at the start of his innings. He was on 26 off 19 at one stage before going into his shell.
He eventually got to 50 off 43 balls, but with wickets still falling at the other end he had to bide his time.
The pressure finally got to him, and he played a wild slog while batting on 60. The resultant top-edge was caught by Jordan. De Kock finally had to go for a 52-ball 60.
Brief scores
Delhi Daredevils - 138/8 (de Kock 60, Chahal 3-32)
Royal Challengers Bangalore - 139/4 (Kohli 54*, Rahul 38)
Result - RCB won by 6 wickets
